‘5 Skills to Cultivate & Identify New Business Opportunities’
“ There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them.” – Seth Godin
The ability to identify and act on a business venture is always a skill worth cultivating. The Covid19 crisis has eliminated boundary conditions but produced innovation accelerators. It is important to craft your ability, now more than ever, recognising meaningful opportunities that could play a major role in whether you author a lasting successful business, and are able to adapt with the changing world. Regardless of the overall state of the economy, cultivating and innovating new business opportunities will forever be in your favour. Most of them could be currently staring you in the face…
#1 – PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO SIMILAR MARKETS – Start paying close attention to business models and products that work well in similar markets to your own, but aren’t currently available in your area. Ask yourself, why this might be and if you could offer it. By offering a new innovation and thinking outside the box, you could be giving people something they didn’t know they needed just yet. Looking for ways to bring these concepts to your local market and starting within your area, will have much lower risk than more novel ideas as well. Start with the community and market audience you have and expand on it. Most importantly making sure you are moving with the ever changing world around us.
#2 – CREATING NEW IDEAS WITH FAMILIARITY – When presenting new ideas to a market, it can cause apprehension, especially if you are offering something your area/market has not experienced or seen before. Not making your offering ‘sound’ too unique plays are huge role in the success of it. Take into account the concept of familiarity, but at the same time giving your market something new and exciting. It’s almost like recycling. Creating, developing and progressing on a better service/product from a previous one. Familiarity gives people contentment. Finding ways to streamline an in-demand concept will fuel rapid growth. Familiarity helps breeds business.
#3 – ACT FAST & AGILE – Market research and other preparatory steps too jumping on a new business idea are certainly important, but finding the balance between careful strategic planning and acting fast will benefit you greatly. Many of the most meaningful business opportunities are those which allow for a fast launch and an agile, iterative approach. These actions will allow you to respond quickly to market disruptions and pivot so you can better serve customers with your winning idea. People will also talk, and many will be watching you closely, possibly trying to beat you to the finish line. Its important to not let this defeat you, but to keep in mind that being clever, secretive and keeping your cards close to your chest will help you in the process. Sitting on things for too long will also make you doubt yourself and allow time and others to move on without you. Being the first in your market with a particular idea will give you the opportunity to establish yourself as the market leader.
#4 – SPOTTING SIGNIFICANT MARKET INEFFICIENCY – Spot negligence and put into practice communication and vigilance. It’s often that by spotting faults and gaps within your market, and those similarly to you, you are already staring at your opportunities in the face and identifying them whether you realise it or not. By assessing the problems that lie within your own community or drawing from things you’ve experienced firsthand, these skills will help you identify issues and cultivate ones that you are going to be more passionate about and should act upon to get ahead.
#5 – MARKET COMMUNICATION – Paying close attention to what customers are saying is key for identifying business models that will be well-received by your local market or further a field. Getting direct customer feedback, acknowledging buying trends and other requests give you greater insight into what the market wants and needs. Creating surveys and communicating with your dedicated community will not only make them feel important and valuable, but will also help you in knowing where and what you should offer next when cultivating your idea’s. Let your community and market audience sculpt the finer details along the way, they know what they want. Without your market and community you wouldn’t have a business or product, so by giving them what they want and what they need, this is exactly what your new business opportunities should thrive from.
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